Gillian Polack's Blog, page 329

gillpolack @ 2010-01-06T23:04:00

I'm still sorting papers and have finished breaking things for the month. Two plates and a portable fan are out of my life: it could have been worse. The fan was nearly forty years old and was plastic and cheap, so it's done well by me.

My word of the day is one I had completely forgotten. "Landwash." It means "beach," but it makes me think of dangerous coastlines and dark storms and the sea washing over the land. I'll try not to forget it this time round. Good words should not be so ...

gillpolack @ 2010-01-06T17:47:00

Today is a day for putting pieces together. I've found all my missing pieces of paper, I've got back door keys, I've bagged 3 big batches of paper for recycling (so that I have more space around me and the last few days won't find it as easy to repeat), and various people said various things (one of whom was capnoblivious

Right now I have to build a bibliography. I was wondering if you could help me. I need a basic list of books with accurate and easily-understandable explanations of quantu...

gillpolack @ 2010-01-06T00:17:00

Today was much beter than yesterday. It was still more than somewhat achey, but I diddn't damage myself or my household too much (eczema aside). I haven't had the courage to fix my desk yet and I'm looking for missing papers.

The missingness of the papers means that I've managed to replace three whole shelves of dated papers with volumes of books that were otherwise adrift. They are not in order, but at least they're not toppling all over the floor. My books might like doing circus stun...

gillpolack @ 2010-01-04T23:47:00

Some days are just ... If I find the right word then another one will follow and another and another and they will be in increasing order of colourful vulgarity.

The only big thing that went wrong was that I've been too ill to do urgent work. I said this yesterday, took great care of myself and then today was worse.

Almost anything touching my legs causes a reaction and sometimes just the air being too dry or too moist will set things off. I have a nice fever and an even nicer sinus headac...

gillpolack @ 2010-01-03T18:51:00

I've just forgotten another friend's birthday. Sometimes I remember vaguely when they are and sometimes I forget them entirely. I've taken to giving friends unbirthday presents, when I find something I want them to have. And when I remember. Or when I can find their addresses.

I'm sure several of my closest friends just laugh at me, much of the time. They used to shake their heads in wonderment at the ways of the Gillian. Now they laugh.

I blame the pre-menopause meltdown. I still know wh...

The day of the bracket - and Dr Who, tropes, cavespeak and maybe even zombie history

My useless-thought-of-the day came from seeing some very early William Hartnell Dr Who last night. It struck me for the umpteenth time as wrongheaded that cave people (the Dr Who notion - I prefer labels like Homo sapiens neanderthalensis because it deceives me into believing I'm saying something intelligent, then I get the terms wrong or use outdated ones and do we really know that neanderthals actually lived in caves and the whole thing gets messy and I delete the blogpost), that cave peop...

gillpolack @ 2010-01-01T17:01:00

Why does Word change perfectly correct words into slightly different words, without telling me? I think the last update has done something to enlarge the auto-correct function, in other words. It's annoying.

I promised a post on the wonderfully evil jokes friends gave me for my father's birthday (some of them are... well, wait and see). I was hoping that certain punnishly-inclined friends would come to the party, but now I'm secretly making a rude gesture in their direction and giving you t...

Decade in review (where Gillian shows her boring side)

I've been reading everyone's "What I did last decade" posts and I've thought "I've done nothing this last decade." Now that my brain is working again, I'm reconsidering. My dreams have begun to manifest in the real world this last decade. My first book, my first booktour: many 'firsts.'

Ten years ago, I had just finished my teaching qualifications. I did most of my teaching quals (rather unorthodoxly) from bed. This is life and life has complications so I'm differently ill now. I still can't d...

Happy 2010

May your year be wonderful :).

Out with the old

The last day of the year is the same mixture of the marvellous and the not-right that has made 2009 so very interesting. I did a bit of housework in the morning, to great effect (no clothes need washing till Monday, and no keys need be lost in the recycling until at least Monday) and then Cat (the Canberra Cat, not the South Coast Cat) came over for lunch. Another friend of hers gave her a birthday present of two cinema tickets and chose to spend them with me and Sherlock Holmes in the afte...